Unpopular Essays

Unpopular Essays: The Neocon/AIPAC Spy Scandal

In the past couple of years, I have contributed essays to a few internet sites regarding what I call the three leaf clover of scandals: the Plame, the neocon/AIPAC spy, and the Niger document forgery scandals. These closely related crimes, which are largely ignored by the "mainstream" corporate media, are among the root causes of the United States being at war in Iraq, and at risk of being involved in a larger conflict in Iran. Today, I think it might be interesting to take a closer look at the neocon/AIPAC spy scandal.

Even among progressive and liberal democrats, this case is capable of causing strong reactions, emotional debates, and harsh conflicts. This is, in part, because such discussions often move away from a focused examination of US policy, and how the criminal conduct of some US citizens has impacted our foreign policy, to debates on Israel and its relationship with its Muslim neighbors.

My goal is to stick with US policy. I will, however, note that I am a supporter of nation of Israel, and recognize it as being one of the United State's best friends. Yet that does not translate into my favoring the right-wing extremists in Israel, or among their supporters in the US, any more than my love for the United States would imply that I support Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney. In fact, my beliefs about Israel and the USA are among the reasons that I am convinced that this country needs to focus our attention onto the neocon/AIPAC spy scandal.

At this time, the legal cases that involve this scandal include Pentagon Iranian analyst Larry Franklin, and former AIPAC representatives Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. In January, Franklin was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months, as a result of his guilty plea. Franklin had passed classified military intelligence to the AIPAC lobbyists, and to an Israeli diplomat. He will not begin to serve his sentence until after the AIPAC case is completed, at which time his attorney will ask the court to reduce his sentence, due to his cooperating with the government.

Many citizens are unaware of these cases. On reason may be that the media is not covering them adequately. For example, the Franklin sentencing was covered by the New York Times in a scanty article on page 30 of its January 21st edition.

At a March 24 pre-trial hearing for Rosen and Weissman, US District Court Judge T.S. Ellis stated that he believed the law the two were charged under may be unconstitutional. This was in response to defense motions to dismiss the case, in which the defense attorneys claimed the case involved "freedom of speech," and that the sharing of classified information between lobbyists, reporters, and government officials was a common practice. For a transcript of hearing, see:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/rosen032406.html

The neocon/AIPAC spy scandal, however, involves far more than issues of freedom of speech and the press. To imply otherwise would be like saying the most important issue in the Plame scandal was Judith Miller's integrity. Prosecutor Kevin DiGregory noted the case is about conduct, not speech, and about "the national security interests of the United States." (Matthew Barakat; Constitutional Questions Show in AIPAC Case; AP; March 24, '06) And, as former ambassador Andrew Killgore wrote, "The question, of course, is whether these practices are common to American friends of all foreign governments, or to those of one in particular." (The Pro-Israel Part Line:"Common Practice"; Washington Report; April '06 - Vol. XXV, No.3; page 14)

The Institute for Research:Middle Eastern Policy attempted to file an amicus curiae brief with the court on this case. Their brief intended to present evidence that indicates:

{1} That AIPAC's organizational structure has become a "quasi intelligence service" that exercises significant influence over the Executive Branch and Congress;

{2} AIPAC's operations on behalf of Israel make it an agent of foreign influence; and

{3} AIPAC's operations in the US promote policies in the Middle East that increase the potential for terrorist attacks against Americans.

Judge Ellis denied the Institute for Research's motion to file their brief. Those interested in his 5-page February 27 decision can find it by googling "Case No. 1:05cr225." It strikes me as curious that Judge Ellis, who feels that AIPAC's influence on the executive and legislative branches may be constitutionally protected free speech, even when it violates laws protecting classified military intelligence, rejected this well-reasoned brief.

Equally puzzling were Judge Ellis's comments in January, that Mr. Franklin was motivated by his patriotic beliefs to leak classified intelligence to the AIPAC lobbyists. In fact, the prosecution has tapes of Franklin and his friends discussing career promotion as one of the potential benefits of his illegal activities.

We should not forget that the fruits of their activities were part of the neoconservatives' promoting the "preemptive" war in Iraq. Ambassador Killgore's special report in the current edition of Washington Report ties this case of espionage to the work of Bush administration officials Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton. It is worth noting that this case is not simply of interest to the "far left" in American politics. Though largely ignored by the corporate media, there have been numerous thoughtful reports on the case by individuals such as Robert Dreyfuss on TomPaine.common sense, and by Patrick Buchanan and Karen Kwiatkowski on LewRockwell.com.

These people, along with others not identified by the indictments returned by the Grand Jury in Alexandria last August, engaged in "overt acts" that were part of a large "conspiracy" to illegally pass classified intelligence material to people who were not legally entitled to it. As the indictment details, both Franklin and Rosen had backgrounds that included signing classified information nondisclosure agreements. They were fully aware that they were violating the law.

People interested in this case, and how it relates to the neoconservative movement, should access the court records made public on the internet; read Washington Report, which is published by the non-profit American Educational Trust (retired US foreign service officers who attempt to provide the American public with balanced, accurate information on US policy in the Middle East), which has a web site: http://www.wrmea.com ; and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.

Of particular interest is Grant Smith's new book, "Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America." It can be previewed at the IRmep site:

http://www.irmep.org/

that people read this.

can not concentrate on both at the same time.

Thank you in advance

K&R

You can't go anywhere, and I do mean anywhere, in DC without running into Aipac reps. If you go to any party, any fundraiser, for any cause but something Islamic, they will be there.

They've always had too much influence in DC, and no one dares cross them. If there is one lobby almost all Senators and Reps fear, it is Aipac.

The nexus between Aipac and the Wolfy-Feith neocons in government is clear. It's also pretty clear that they've funneled classified info to Israel about US military and operational matters.

Good luck, you'll need it.

if I have to decide which should atrophy -- my social calender or my conscience -- I'll be sitting home frequently, missing those high-powered diner parties where they are found.

I've enjoyed hanging out with a number of them over the years. They're charismatic and great social reps for AIPAC. But the bottom line is they are committed to Israel intensely.

An automatic recommendation!

:hi:

I don't see how they can say, however, that 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) "as applied to them in this case, section 793 is unconstitutionally vague and violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech."

It seems pretty clear to me:

(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it;

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000793----000-.html

I am working my way through the Order now. I will try and get back to this a little later.

Thanks, H20 Man!

K&R!

:kick:

I'm watching the hearings on tv, as I know many DUers are. They represent a historic moment, and we should all enjoy the show. While parts are frustrating, in the sense that several republicans are lying weasals, they are being exposed.

What a day!

I am at work and can't wait to get some time to check out the threads for the hearing.

:kick:

CSPAN I think is showing a repeat later, but don't quote me on that

link for repeat time

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x805509

Thanks so much! :hi:

repeated version will include a portion that was not seen live. I am not positive about that.

I agree fully that it was emotional .... and while there are times when emotions are a valued addition to a debate, there are times when logic alone is more beneficial. I noted, for example, that early on, when Mr. Dean was attempting to answer questions posed by a couple republicans, they were too emotionally invested to allow him the 30 seconds needed to respond uninterrupted. Instead, their emotions caused them to behave in the rudest manner.

Likewise, I find on the version of this thread on Daily Kos, at least one person is unabled to respond with logic, but instead is being driven by emotions. I believe it was for this very reason that Ben Franklin once said, "When passions drive, let reason hold the reins."

You always provide links that are very educational, and I always enjoy and look forward to your posts.

I'm a daily visitor to your blog. I've got a blown-up print of your profile photo hanging on my office wall.

You're getting groupies, dude. You ought to be the prime feature on every thinking man's news outlet. Don't get assassinated, please. Stay out of small aircraft. Thank you.

I'm glad that you enjoy my writing. I've been slow on posting, because I'm preparing for a minor role in a documentary that a regional historical group is filming. I've got to be ready on Monday.

It has to do with a murder that happened in this county in 1874. It's actually a fascinating tale, that I am interested in part because in the rural, upstate part of NYS where I live, there were a series of strange murders between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century. There was a kid from the county seat (Norwich, NY) who lived with his non-English speaking, Irish immigrant grandparents. He used to think about these murders when he did his farm chores. A lonely kid, he ended up the leading American psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan. I worked in the mental health clinic named for him, though the county fathers long refused to honor him by naming it for him, as he was gay.

Anyhow, I'm half-tempted to include some of what my part is here, on DU. It has to do with reviewing the mental health evaluation (or "insanity hearing") the murderer had. It might be of interest, especially as people discuss and debate issues like the woman who shot her minister husband. It's how one evaluates the murderer first, in terms involving their level of functioning, and then viewing the crime in that context.

Do you think it would be of interest?

on the run away carriage of emotion, also Norwich where is that in NY, I went to High school (Liverpool High) in the Syracuse area but went all over for high school related events.

On edit it looks like the Google map has you somewhere near Casanovia College if I remember the spelling correctly, and the area?

It's Chenango County, just north of Broome. If you go up 12 to Sherburne, and continue on 12A, you are a short drive from Caz and Oneida, along with Canastota and the Boxing Hall of Fame and the infamous Turning Stone Casino. A short drive from there, and one reaches Liverpool, Syracuse, and -- of course -- the Onondaga Nation Territory.

I still have the tie clip that Robert Kennedy handed out on the Norwich Court House steps in 1964, when he ran for the senate.

Maybe when and if I go back for my 15, 20(2012) or 25 year reunions I can look you up?

If I could open a tap to your brain on history and politics I would soak it up for hours and hours, but in place of that your posts and blog will suffice for now.

Thanks H2O Man lets see if something comes out the Plame debacle today or over the weekend.

JL report on TruthOut, it sounded like his sources expected something towards the end of April, or early May.

I would certainly enjoy getting together with you when you are back this way.

I love deep bits of good American (or world) social history. We never, ever get the real story, the one we would get if we were there, as one of the people involved. History is very much just shadows on the wall of the cave, especially before the application of science to standard stories became the new thing, a practic which always seems to show us just how skewed human perception can be. Add in the cultural tendency to suppress truths that threatens the bedrock community reality-consensus, and you get dusty paintings that offer little wisdom to the currently living.

I daily wish for a good time machine. Any ideas on that one, Mr. O'Waterman?

my good friend Rubin told me that even when we are isolated, we can reach across all barriers -- including time -- to converse with many of the great minds of human history. We can access many worlds through books. Now that I am old and live a solitary life, I find that I can break bread with Jefferson, or fast with Gandhi. Books are the best time machine available!

And yes, I love the book as well. The older the better.

Hurricane Carter.












edited to add photo

Jerry's not a bad guy, but he's no Abbie Hoffman, y'know?

Have a good night, Sir O'Waterman.

Since you have worked in that field, it is interesting to hear your stories. I like your philosophical posts too. It seems the practice of psychology is still in its infancy, like when people used ice-picks to study the brain, crude.

and very much appreciate your threads.

There was a time that I did not understand issues and players related to the Plame issue, til I read H2O Man's threads!!

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:jUlO2jPeBG8J:www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo%3Fjid%3D703+US+District+Court+Judge+T.S.+Ellis+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=16457&intcategoryid=3

The Judge is deciding today!?!?!?!

I can see these three scandals connected to a fourth: massive election fraud. Jack Abramoff's ties to AIPAC don't get much press, but we have good reason to suspect that they are deep and wide.

And Abramoff lobbied for Diebold. Abramoff's personal assistant became Rove's personal assistant. Abramoff's ties to Bob Ney, author of the HAVA legislation, have been discussed widely (e.g., http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/17/AR2005101701918_pf.html). Brad Friedman of BradBlog has succinctly described HAVA as "...the bill that used the phony confusion of the 2000 Florida Election Debacle along with the specter of poor disabled people roaming the country desperate and helplessly unable to vote unless they were given paperless, hackable, un-recountable Electronic Voting Machines in every precinct in America. The kind that can only work at all if the software they use is kept a complete secret from every voter in the country, except those who work for one of America's Voting Machine Companies like Diebold, Inc. for instance" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/connecting-ohios-bob-ney_b_13582.html).

With all the massive influence-peddling going on, would influence over the vote (legal and otherwise) be something they could resist? It seems more likely that it was a crucial element of the strategy to implement the PNAC vision.

It is anti-democracy. It really seems that all of their actions are geared towards the destruction of the constitution.

The Plame, the neocon/AIPAC spy, and the Niger document forgery scandals."

:7

I love the Huffington link.

And that's no blarney!

:)

:rofl:

:hi:

I just finished the free online first chapter of Deadly Dogma. I highly recommended it (follow link in OP). Thanks for the direction, H2O Man.

It certainly clarifies how extremely important it is for neo-cons to hold the keys that keep historical government documents secret. So much information that became available during the Clinton administration is no longer de-classified. They are brilliant. The only hope for this country lies in the possibility that their brilliance is not geared for the long-haul, or that they get voted out of office -- but, the depth of their influence has obviously permiated both parties. Feingold better live through this; and I hate to even think that way ....

Happy Friday, folks ... a step in the direction of the truth happened today; momentum is building.

I also strongly recommend that DUers read it.

And I agree 100% that momentum is building. It is important to not underestimate what happened today. Several republicans exposed themselves as snakes, in a forum that will get more attention as we move into the late spring and early summer.

"Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression, do not make revolutions. It is when expectation replaces submission, when despair is touched with the awareness of possibility, that the forces of human desire and the passion for justice are unloosed." -- Robert F. Kennedy

:toast: :patriot:

Your point about the control of historical documents, and the hope of voting the neo-cons out, also speaks to my questions about election fraud above.

... is so boring!!! There's no politician caught red-handed with a golden toilet gift, there's no president saying, "When folks hear about the united states surveilling terrorists, we gotta have a court order to do it ..", there's no blue dress, etc.

The brilliance of election fraud lies in their ability to hide the evidence far and wide, I think. What seem like minor discrepencies add up to major vote advantages when gathered back up. For as much as people do not trust computers (even self-professed luddites probably know what "Norton Anti-Virus" means), it's wonder that election fraud is not more of a concern to the average voter. Blows my mind.

thanks for those links (and for the welcome!).

snip>>

Lawyers for ex-AIPAC officials look to subpoena Rice, NSA
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/693301.html


"The names of Rice, Hadley and a number of other people the defense wants to call appeared on the online docket for the case Friday afternoon but by Sunday had been removed and replaced with the word "Witness." The docket indicated that the notices of subpoena had been made "in camera," or in private before a judge, and under seal.

Telephone calls to Rosen lawyer Abbe Lowell, Weissman lawyer John Nassikas, and to a spokesman for the federal court, Edward Adams, were not immediately returned on Sunday.

Along with Rice and Hadley, others named in the notices of subpoena filed last Wednesday included Elliot Abrams, deputy national security adviser; Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state; David Satterfield, deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq; William Burns, U.S. ambassador to Russia; retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni; and Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA officer and current Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Also listed was Lawrence Franklin..."

before?


Tick tock, Tick tock:beer:

This really ties Waterman's post in with yours.

Kudos!:toast:

and thank you

For the night crew.

IMFO: These neocon turdballs are traitors. For example, here's some evidence on Michael Ledeen:



Really appreciate all you do, H20 Man. Not many understand what it is we as a nation are up against.